All that is dark | ✓

1| meeting

"SO YOU'RE HELENE AMSEL."

The director smiled widely as he sat down in his chair, spreading his arms as he welcomed her. Helene glanced around only for a second at the grey walls and empty room, before looking back at her new employer. When he had called her, his voice had sounded urgent, but now she heard him speaking again it sounded like that was simply his way of speaking. His eyes kept darting to the door even though he laced his smile with confidence, as if that would be enough to hide how nervous he was. Not of her, that she could tell, but considering that they were in the highest security prison of the country, it was not that strange that he seemed to be anxious all the time.

"It's a pleasure," Helene said.

"No, the pleasure's all mine," the man replied," to have an internationally renowned psychiatrist in front of me - I must say, I didn't think you'd say yes to coming here. Don't you get a lot of job opportunities?"

Despite years of hearing the compliments, she still didn't quite know how to respond to them. She'd excelled at any subject she tried her hand on her whole life, but medicine had been the most fun. All her days in college had been spent hidden in the libraries, until she had memorized every single thing she could. Not that there were many other ways to spend her college years when she was thirteen when she began and eighteen when she finished. The job offers streamed in, one after the other, and she started working, even though her patients often looked at her like she was still a child. It always was a strange feeling, considering she never had been allowed to be one.

"I needed a change of pace," she said, absentmindedly glancing at the bars on the sole window in the room. When she looked back at him, he was fidgeting with his fingers again. "Besides, it sounded like you really needed to find someone quickly."

"I did," he said," I'm glad you accepted. Being director here is hard enough, but honestly, I've been at my wit's end these days. I'm sure you've heard of our current prisoner, so you can imagine the pressure I'm under."

"Nathan Parker," she mused.

"The devil himself," the director shivered.

And the reason she was here.

These days she only felt numb as she went to work and arrived home to work. It was tiring, the fatigue of it all seeping into her bones, rattling with every step she took like she was a wooden doll dancing around on a stage. She was performing even while breathing, so busy holding the weight of the world on her that sometimes it was difficult to even hold her shoulders high anymore. But she did. She always did. In the end, who was she when she was not perfect?

When the director of Brooksville Penitentiary called her, she knew logically there weren't many reasons to say yes. Her current job paid more, there were TV programs asking her to come and perform her so-called magic, she was getting more well-known by the day. No sane person would exchange that for a job where she was in danger every day, one which would make her disappear from the public eye. Perhaps that's exactly why she said yes.

They needed her to come in immediately, the director had said, and when she turned on the TV she could see why. Nathan Parker's face was everywhere, the same clip of him being dragged into a police car playing over and over. His list of crimes was longer than she'd ever heard, but the thing that truly stuck in her head was his expression. The way he smiled ever so lazily, like a bored lion stretching out in the hot sun, no care in the world about the people cursing him out and the multiple life sentences he was going to serve. For the first time in a while, she didn't feel that numb anymore. A curiosity she thought she had long forgotten had piqued, and now, here she was.

"Well, let's go," the director said, already on his feet and out of the door," our last six psychiatrist were out of here within a day, so I hope you can last longer. The authorities are highly invested in this case, so they were very dissatisfied with the lack of medical reports here the last couple of days. I'm glad you're here now, so you can start as soon as possible."